Driving the train to Pearl Harbor memories

Dec. 6, 2013

Updated Dec. 7, 2013 9:29 a.m.

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Bill Lewis, top, and Bill Hatrick rehearse welcoming passengers aboard their 1940s-era "Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train" on Friday, the day before it will roll to San Diego and back to the Los Angeles Union Station. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Bill Lewis prepares a table in "The Overland Trial" rail car on Friday for Saturday's trip to San Diego and back to the Los Angeles Union Station. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Bill Lewis, right, and his helper David Perez get "The Overland Trial" rail car ready for Saturday's trip to San Diego and back to the Los Angeles Union Station. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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By Friday the Santa Fe Acoma Car was all ready for Saturday's trip. It is one of four rail cars which are part of the Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Bill Hatrick puts on his conductors uniform, which he will wear on the "Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train" during Saturday's trip to San Diego and back to the Los Angeles Union Station. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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A 1940s-era camera and newspapers from that time are some of the items used to make "The Overland Trail" rail car authentic. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Bill Lewis looks over "The Overland Trial" rail car on Friday at the Los Angeles Union Station as he prepares it for Saturday's trip to San Diego. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Bill Lewis decorates a Christmas tree which will be sit in "The Overland Trial" rail car during Saturday's trip to San Diego and back to the Los Angeles Union Station. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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Bill Lewis, left, and Bill Hatrick chat in the dome diner of "The Silver Splendor" rail car, which is one of four cars, which make up the 1940s-era "Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train." ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

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1940s-era figurines decorate the tables on "The Overland Trail" rail car. ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

Bill Lewis, top, and Bill Hatrick rehearse welcoming passengers aboard their 1940s-era "Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train" on Friday, the day before it will roll to San Diego and back to the Los Angeles Union Station.ARMANDO BROWN, FOR THE REGISTER

Well, maybe one other thing. Because the reason Lewis is pulling all-nighters this year has nothing to do with 12-foot Christmas trees.

And everything to do with a lesson gleaned long ago, from Dad.

• • •

Lewis has been losing sleep over something called the Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train.

It runs every Dec. 7 – the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor – from L.A. to San Diego and back.

“As soon as passengers get on the train, we launch them back to 1941,” says Lewis, who finds all the volunteer singers, re-enactors and actual World War II veterans who tell their stories on four vintage rail cars.

“We run it as a live radio program.”

You can hear songs by the Andrew Sisters. Buy coffee for a nickel. Grab a 1940s-era haircut at the on-board barbershop.

When the troop train started 12 years ago, it carried a dozen Pearl Harbor survivors who told of the 1941 Japanese air attack that killed some 2,400 Americans and decimated 21 U.S. warships and 300 planes.

All 12 have since died, leading Lewis to seek other World War II survivors.

This year, he lined up 14 WW2 veterans, including two Pearl Harbor survivors – all in their 90s. By last week, all but one had to cancel due to the infirmities of old age.

Bill Lewis, already in the middle of his busiest time of year, went to work.

• • •

The first of 353 Japanese planes roared over Oahu, Hawaii, on a quiet Sunday morning, 72 years ago today.

Yeoman 3rd Class Howard Bender saw the first explosions from a porthole on the USS Maryland. As he ran topside, the USS Oklahoma capsized from torpedo hits, taking 429 men to their grave.

“All these guys were in the water,” says Bender, 92, of Mission Viejo. “And flames and smoke were going up in the air.”

The nearby USS Arizona took several bombs, one to its forward magazine, igniting an explosion that killed more than 1,100 men.

Within 90 minutes, the U.S. Pacific fleet lay in ruins.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Don Show had a bird’s-eye view of the devastation as the USS Phoenix, a light cruiser, escaped the harbor unharmed.

“I was sick to my stomach,” says Show, 93, of Huntington Beach. “I heard screams from the Arizona when we drove by. I saw men in the water where the Oklahoma had rolled over.”

Show had been preparing to visit his brother, Dewey, a soldier at the nearby Schofield Barracks, when the attack came.

Their paths never crossed again.

“He nearly made it till the end of the war,” Show says. “But he was killed in the invasion of the Philippines.”

• • •

These are the kinds of stories preserved on the Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train each year. But the stories, like the men who tell them, are fading fast.

Some 60,000 servicemen and women survived the surprise attack. Fewer than 3,000 are left. About six are left in Orange County.

All of which makes Lewis’ job tougher each year.

He recalls stories from men who watched battleships lift out of the water when hit; from men who were blown overboard into the harbor; from men who saved other men’s lives.

“Many of the veterans can’t talk about the horrors they saw,” Lewis says. “They don’t want to break down in public. I tell them, if you can’t talk about it, at least write about it. Someday, someone will ask, ‘What did Great-Grandpa do in World War II?’ And no one will know.”

“I have a little trouble walking,” says the former Texas farm boy. “My hearing is bad. My seeing is worse. And my love life has gone down the drain!”

Greenhouse was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Ewa, 17 miles west of Pearl Harbor and the first installation bombed that day.

“We had 50 airplanes lined up nice and pretty for inspection,” he says. “Three minutes after the war started, they were all gone.”

Gunfire from low-flying Japanese fighters missed Greenfield by inches.

“They covered me in dirt,” he says.

Greenfield is making his seventh trip on the troop train – one of the regulars.

And one of the reasons Bill Lewis, at age 70, still pulls all-nighters to make it all happen.

• • •

You’ve got to know this about Lewis. He’s a train lover.

From his first windup tin train to his years chasing vintage trains by car just to see and hear them.

Lewis produced the first annual Fullerton Railroad Days in 2001. It was there, while talking to Bill Hatrick, owner of the rail car known as the 1949 Overland Trail, that something clicked.

“I walked up to him and said, ‘Bill, I’ve got an idea for your car.’ ”

Like that, the Pearl Harbor Day Troop Train was born. Each year, Lewis has kept it going, (it’s up to four vintage rail cars this year) despite the difficulty finding guys in their 90s to tell their stories.

Why do it?

This is when he starts talking about his dad.

“Growing up, I think every man I knew was a World War II veteran,” says Lewis who, like his father, was a career Navy man.

After retiring, Lewis visited his father, Jack Lewis, every day, admiring his plaques, pictures and life of service. Those visits were like a lesson in how to live a good life.

“I’d look at him in awe and think, I’ve got to do something to honor these guys,” Lewis says.

With the troop train, he found it.

“In five years we won’t have many World War II veterans left,” he says.

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